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Create a shape to bend. It must be a group or a component. Then select a single horizontal (red axis) line to use as the base for bending. Then select the curve that the shape will bend to match. Wait for it to think, then it will show a grid and preview of where your object is going to transform to. Press the UP Arrow key to toggle the orientation of the bend.

I am looking forward to using this tool. However the extension does not let me select a single straight line that is parallel to the red axis as the basis of the operation. I select the target group to be bent, then I activate the Shape Bender tool. The mouse cursor changes to an arrow with straight horizontal line below the arrow. Then nothing visible happens when I click the line to be used as the first (straight) reference. If I turn on the Ruby Console window I see the following each time I click on the candidate straight line:

As a test if I click on some other geometry in the model the extension display the plausible error "Please select a single straight line first."

This is with SketchUp Pro 2016. I have never used or downloaded this extension prior to today. I downloaded/installed Shape Bender via the Extension Warehouse window within SketchUp itself; no errors were reported, the process seemed similar to other extensions I've installed. I've quit and re-started SketchUp, which makes no difference.

This Plugin does work with 2016, follow J Carl B's instructions (at the top of this thread). I found easier to orient my geometry ( A 3D wire mesh fence) in the horizontal plane and then rotate up when bent.

Can a fix be made so that Shape Bender works when using it in a 'mm' scale model as it seems to work fine in the meters range but not in mm - apart from that great plugin, pity I have to make my bolts and nuts huge and re-scale them after bending

LOVE IT!! Watch the video folks, I had trouble to start with too. Being an engineer, I never read directions (sorry Chris). Installed it this morning, fiddled around, watched the video - short answer, 1 draw the shape and then group it, 2 draw a
helper line (on it along the red axis), draw a reference curve, also along the red axis, this will be the shape you want to bend it to.

Select the tool, select the reference helper line, select the reference curve (toggle through the arrow keys until the green grid is on the reference curve - hit enter, yer done!

I can't seem to find the toolbar for Shape bender. I have to go to "Extensions -> Chris Fullmer Tools -> Shape bender" every time... Is there a way to enable this and use the toolbar? I've seen people on Youtube with the toolbar active. Btw, I'm using SU15.

Right-click on your toolbar, and tick "Shape Bender". Its not the biggest toolbar in the world (just one icon - a horizontal bar, with an arc above it), so look carefully ! I missed it in my first few weeks of using.

Hi Chris, from what I gather you've moved on from this but I figured why not try. I'm trying to add concavity to my 2D shape in both the x and y axis. The addin works great when adding curvature along the x axis, but then when I try to bend that result in the y axis, no luck. If you had any suggestions I'd love to hear them. Thank you for your help.

hello. im using sketchup 8. and i cant use the plug in as how it is explained on the tutorial. i aws trying to make a curved ramp just like in the tutorial.. i group the ramp, make it a component, after that draw a line and curve. i selected the grouped ramp. click the bender tool, after that it says that i need to click a line along the red axis. but i cant click the line. pls help.

i'm not getting this to work. I can select the line parallel to the red axis okay, but then when the cursor changes to an arrow with the curvy line below it it will not detect the curved line I want to bend the component to. I have clicked everywhere in the vicinity of the curved line with no luck.

The curve is just a simple curved line made with the arc tool. No faces connected. I tried exploding the curve to see if that made a difference, but no luck. however now I sometimes get a dialog box that says "Please select a series of lines with no connected faces - like an arc." But that is what I'm trying to select--a simple arc make of six straight segments.

Hi Andy, typically that happens if the curved line has any branches or forks. It only works if it is a simple curved line, with no splits in it. It also has to be ungrouped. I don't think it will work if its inside of a group or component. Does that help?

Finally got it to work. Apparently my curved line was too long. I was trying to bend some dimensional type to a curve that was longer than the type itself. When I shortened the line to approximate the length of the type then the tool worked.

I am using 2015 Pro, and the selecting a single line on red axes is not working for me. I have uninstalled it and installed again from the Extension warehouse but it didn't fix the problem. I have verified that the line is parallel to the red axes. Any idea?

I have uninstalled and reinstalled SB. I have tried it on two different computers with two different SU installations (both SU2015 Pro)
I draw a simple 10m long, 1m wide and 1m high ramp and make it a component. The base of this ramp is parallel to the red axis
I draw a simple arc
I draw a straight line along/parallel to the base of the ramp and parallel to the red axis.
I select the ramp and the cursor changes to the line cursor, and the message in lower left corner states "Please select a simple line that lies on the red axis".
But I can not chose the straight line. I move the cursor around and click and click, and when the tip of the cursor is directly above the line, I get the message "Please select a line that is drawn on the red axis. But the line IS drawn at the red axix. Parallel to the red axis.
I then try to draw a line directly on the red axis starting in 0,0,0. Does not work.
But now comes the funny part - when I take my ramp and the straight line and rotate 90 dgr. so that the ramp and the line is now parallel to the green axis, then the straight line got blue, and I can select it. And then the arc also go blue and I can select it. I get the green wireframe-ramp and start and end. So far so good. Because the wireframe ramp is not bend, and when I press ENTER, the ramp is not bend to the curve/arc.
And the most frustrating part is that I made it work many times, and I do this exactly the same way as before, but now it does not work.
HELP!

I have the exact same problem. I select the component I want to bend, and the cursor changes to the "arrow with straight line". How ever it does not detect the line on the red axis. It worked for me a long periode of time, but now it doesn't. I have uninstalled and reinstalled SB with no succes. What am I doing wrong?
Using SU2015 Pro

Chris Fullmer has been writing SketchUp plugins since 2009 when he designed a free study course at UC Berkeley aimed at using SketchUp Ruby to make tools to help improve the landscape modeling process.
Chris now works for Trimble as the SketchUp Product Manager for the Extensibility Team.